The Changeling
by GilcuruLend
Summary: Takamachi Nanoha: A perfectly ordinary nine year old girl who discovers magic with the help of a ferret. As Yuuno learns within twenty seconds of meeting her, every word in the above sentence is false. Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zerg.
1. Prologue

AN: You do not necessarily need knowledge of either Nanoha or Starcraft to read this fanfic without confusion, as it starts at Nanoha S1. This will be updated once per week on Sunday, and I do have a small backlog. The cover image is owned by Blizzard and covered by fair use.

 _It has been said that fairies would replace a human_

 _child with one of their own. This fairy child would_

 _then grow up with the human parents as if their own;_

 _these children were known as changelings._

"Time for bed now. Sleep well Nanoha, okay?" Momoko, Nanoha's mother, says. She is a lithe woman with long brown hair, mother of three.

"Okay mommy." Nanoha sits in her bed. A small brown haired five year old child, the most extraordinary thing about her is her hair that always sticks up. Or so her family believes.

She waits several hours more, eyes closed without truly sleeping. Her parents talk, and she can hear her older brother practicing his swordsmanship learned from their father. Eventually the noises die down, and everyone goes to bed.

Nanoha waits an hour more. Everyone is asleep, good. She stands up and waddles over to the window. She looks up, annoyed at how high it is. This is her first time she has to go herself, so she refuses to fail. Nanoha turns away for a different exit, before pausing. How silly of her to forget! She leaps a meter up onto the windowsill and opens the window.

She looks for any watchers. It wouldn't be good for any neighbor to catch her, after all. Not finding any, she moves on. She straightens up and walks. It is such a relief to be able to move properly after all these years of pretending. Even if she likes her family and would prefer to just stay there.

The little girl walks down the street, breathing in the stale air of the city. She's tired of this polluted air. She continues her walk in the night feeling the sensations of gravel under her bare feet. She steps on a sharp rock and sighs, sitting down to take it out. Red blood squirts out her foot and she squeaks in pain. She looks at her foot and scrunches up her face in concentration. She knows she can do it, if just-there. The bleeding stops, her foot good as new.

Nanoha stands up with a smile, and merrily goes on her way. Soon enough she reaches the forest. Almost home.

She now breaks into a run, past pretending to have the limitations of a child's endurance. The girl laughs and smiles, breathing in the fresh forest air, carelessly breaking twigs under her feet as she runs. It's been so long, she can't bear to wait any longer. She runs like this for what seems like hours, simply enjoying her journey, laughing on her way.

"Nanoha?"

She freezes. Nanoha turns around and sees her mother and father, standing just behind her, both huffing and sweating from running. How could she make such a mistake? She flops down onto the ground and begins crying.

"Mommy? Daddy?"

"Who are you?" Shiro, her father, points his sword at her. He is tall, with short black hair and has powerful muscles. He once worked as a bodyguard, before he got an almost lethal injury and was hospitalized. "What have you done with Nanoha?"

"Um. What happened? How did I get here?"

"I saw you leave. You woke me up in your escape of the house and it was a simple matter to follow you… but no human child could run that fast for so long. No real child would have such an inhuman and cruel laugh. Demon, who are you?"

"I'm not a demon! Wah, don't you recognize me daddy? Let's go home." Nanoha begins to crawl towards him.

"Trickster spirit, where did you take my daughter?"

"I-"

"Nanoha," Momoko says, kneeling down next to her, "just tell us the truth and everything will be fine."

"Um." She can't! If she does-well. She's has already had to practically raise herself due to her father's injury, and if they knew the truth… They'd surely leave her alone forever, and then she would be stuck at Home. Home, while she loves it, is not a good place to stay for long. Not with the other creatures there. She wants to stay with her family!

"Don't worry my baby." Momoko gives her a reassuring smile. "Everything will be okay." She picks Nanoha up and begins stroking her back. "It will be okay."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I don't want to go."

"You don't have to go."

Nanoha pauses, then uses her telepathy. _Please be safe. Be my little girl._

"Um. Okay. I'll tell." Let's see. She will have to modify the truth so Shiro doesn't attack, but hopefully it will be enough for them to keep her. She would be sad if she had to be alone. "Um, three years ago I got taken to the hive cluster. I can show you it, I was going there now. Then they transformed me into a zerg like them so I got superpowers and have to go there occasionally to eat. I had a friend who would bring me creep to eat before but it isn't safe for him to come here."

"Who is your friend?"

"Zrok. He's a zergling which is like a dog."

"A dog, huh," Shiro finally speaks.

"Yup!" Nanoha smiles in Momoko's arms. "Want to see him?"

"Sure."

They continue at a slow pace, following Nanoha's directions for what seems to be several kilometers. Momoko sets the conversation, talking about normal, everyday things like their café. Then they reach it.

They ground is covered in a thick layer of grayish purple, organic substance called creep. It pulses as if alive, and seems to be moving. All the trees where the creep lays are gone, making an artificial clearing. On the creep are two pulsating buildings. One is more than thrice as tall as Shiro, a thick base that comes to a spire at the center: the hatchery. The other is smaller, but filled with a strange green acid: the spawning pool. Around them are several moving creatures that have a faint resemblance to a dog. They are half as tall as a human and have a few giant claws on each foot. They have tusks around their sharp teeth as well as a thick layer of brown carpace covering them whole. They have two limbs on top with each have claws jutting out, makin for the appearance of an evil wing, but just behind those are two actual insectoid wings, though much too small to carry them. These are the zerglings.

Nanoha squeals in excitement and jumps out of Momoko's arms onto the ground, covering herself with creep. She begins eating some of it, the highly nutritious food giving her energy. One of the zerglings walks up to them.

"Isn't he so cute?" Nanoha jumps onto the zergling's back. "This is Zrok!"

"He's, um, very… interesting." Shiro partially sheaths his sword. She didn't even see him take it out. He must have just gotten spooked.

"Let's-let's go. Now. Nanoha, come."

"Aww, we just got here." Nanoha frowns. "Wait, no, let's go." Another zergling seems to have taken notice and is slowly stalking them. Nanoha jumps off Zrok and walks up to Momoko who picks her up. She silently urges them to start moving. They have to move!

The zergling pounces, only to fly backward as Nanoha holds her arm out. She strains with the effort, but keeps it back. Zrok jumps on the feral zergling, tearing it apart in a shower of gore. Her parents run, Shiro lagging behind from his injury while Momoko carries her.

They only stop when they are far out of sight of the hive cluster.

"Sorry mommy and daddy. The zerglings go crazy sometimes and fight each other. That's why I can't stay there."

"You are not going there again." Momoko looks down at her fearfully.

Well that is a problem for her. She does need to go there to rejuvenate after all.

"Let's go home."

"Alright."

The walk home is much more sedate than to there. Shiro leans on his wife the whole time. Nanoha drifts off to sleep.

"Nanoha?"

"Wha?" She slowly opens her eyes. Oh, they're back home. Safe. Momoko is standing next to her while Shiro is across the room, putting his sword away.

"Promise me you won't go back there," Momoko pleads. "It's not safe."

"No, I need to. Otherwise I'll shrivel up and die." Momoko looks disturbed at that, which strikes Nanoha as strange. Isn't that how humans age as well? "And Zrok can protect me. He's strong."

"Fine. Only as often as you need to. And… you're still Nanoha. Please, grow up like a normal human girl."

"Of course! I'm like you. I'll be a human for real and make lots of friends. Okay?"

"Good."

"We'll talk more about this. Later." Shiro gives Momoko a meaningful glance. Their lives certainly won't be uninteresting for now on.

The next morning, after her brother and sister have gone to school, her parents delay the opening of the cafe to talk.

"So," Momoko begins, "you have to meet with those monsters?"

"Yes. Otherwise I begin to die."

"Are you still human?" Shiro asks her.

"In mind if not in body." This is not a complete lie; she seems to partially have the mindset of a human in addition to what she's picked up from living among them so long.

"I… see." He lets out a deep breath. "When you have to go, tell us. One of us will go with you."

"Okay." Nanoha decides not to press them on letting her go alone.

"And we'll have to see how we can cure you. You shouldn't have to live like this." Momoko looks at her daughter with pity.

"Thanks. I would like that," Nanoha lies. She actually would prefer to stay zerg, but deinfestation is impossible anyways even if that would cure her. Removing all the zerg from any zerg creature would just kill it.

Nanoha hopes they don't spoil her cover, though. If they act weird in public with her someone might suspect something.

"Nothing changes though, right? I'm still the same person I was last week. Don't treat me differently."

"Of course."

 _One Month Later_

Nanoha is playing in the back of the cafe when a man in a suit comes in, ignoring the menu. He has short, black hair and stands absolutely straight with perfect posture as he walks. He goes straight for her father.

"Greetings Mr. Takamachi, I would like to talk to you and your daughter for a moment."

"And who are you?"

"My name is Honda Mazda, and I'm from the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Please, let's meet in private." He holds up a badge, face unflinching while he stares at Shiro. Shiro's whole body is tensed, ready for action, while simultaneously appearing relaxed.

"Yes, very well. Nanoha! Come over here."

"Okay!" Nanoha runs over to him, and he motions for them to follow.

"What are you doing here Mazda?" She smiles up at him disarmingly.

He flinches.

"Please call me Mr. Honda."

They reach Shiro's office, normally simply a room to do the necessary paperwork outside the view of customers. He pulls up three chairs for each of them.

"I'm sure you are wondering why I'm here."

"Yes, we have done nothing to alarm you."

"Over the last few years, there have been fifteen deaths in Uminari forest. That wouldn't be cause for concern, but the few survivors tell a more interesting tale. Monsters, hunting down and killing anyone who gets close, only to be saved by a small child." He looks down at Nanoha. "A small child with brown hair and blue eyes who can seem to command the monsters."

"And what does this have to do with us?"

"We have tracked you going to and from the center of this phenomenon."

"I see. And what are you going to do about it?"

"We want information. What these creatures are, and why she can control them."

"And if I refuse?"

"The JSDF destroys the creatures, and if you or your daughter stand in the way, you. But I think you should consider the benefits of working with us. Protection, for one. There are people who would hate someone in control of monsters so murderous."

"I understand." He looks over at Nanoha. "Nanoha?"

"I'll tell," she says. She'll tell him everything that will keep him on her side. "They're called zerg. They're relatively mindless, except for me. I'm part zerg so I can control them."

"Indeed. And why are they attacking people?"

"Instinct. They're wild animals."

"So why didn't you tell anyone about them earlier? We could easily eradicate them."

That is false, but she shouldn't tell him that. She'll have to rely on his sympathy for a kid to not get him to attack the hive. If he did, she'd only have the choice of dying herself or killing them.

"I need them alive to live."

"I see. Is there anyway around that?"

Nanoha thinks for a moment. "Nope."

"Thank you for your time today, we will be in contact." He stands up and walks away.

 _Three Days Later_

Nanoha hears the door opening. Her father must just have gotten home from work.

"Dad!"

"Hey Nanoha." Her father walks over to her when there is a knock on the door. He freezes, then goes to open the door.

"Hello Mr. Takamachi. I'm back."

"Me Honda, welcome to my home. What gives the pleasure of meeting with you today?"

"Let's talk privately." He glances over at Nanoha, and Shiro nods, getting his point. They walk over to the guest bedroom and shut the door.

Nanoha crawls up to the door and listens in. They make small talk for a few minutes, then get on to the real reason he showed up.

"I'd like to make you an offer. I know you have taken in the intelligent zerg creature."

"You mean _Nanoha_. She has a name and she's my daughter."

"Right. So I would like to offer, in exchange for us not destroying these 'zerg' and keeping their presence hidden from the public, for you to make sure no one else dies from it and to let us do tests on these zerg."

He's blackmailing them! She shouldn't have trusted him with her secret.

"Very well. This is the best deal we are going to get."

No, Dad! Nanoha frowns at him accepting the blackmail.

"Good, I'm glad you see it my way. Please, let's exchange contact information."

"Right."

Nanoha hears some shuffling of papers, then the two men walk up to the door and open it, with her just scrambling away.

"So we have a little spy? Heh, you'll do great," Honda says with a smirk. "I'll be back with the contract later."


	2. Chapter One

_Five years later_

"You've been spacing out a lot lately. What's wrong Nanoha?" Suzuka asks as the three friends walk home from school. She is a purple haired student in Nanoha's grade, whom she is friends with.

"It's just, well, I feel like someone needs my help."

"Who?"

"Maybe it's just a bad feeling," Arisa suggests.

"Maybe. Or… hey, I recognize this place." If her dream is right, then she should go left. She stops for a moment and considers if she should really be following her dream. Well, if she phrases it like that then of course! Nanoha runs off the forest trail, dashing into the woods. She has to find out if it was real.

"Where are you going?" Arisa shouts after her, her long blond hair flowing in the wind behind her. "Can you tell us for once before you do something weird!"

Nanoha recalls her dream from last night. A boy wearing strange clothes was fighting some sort of shadow monster and lost, getting very hurt. He called out for help, and she can't help but feel that he was calling to her, and only she can save him.

Nanoha runs into a small clearing far ahead of her friends. In the center is a ferret, bleeding out. He has a necklace with a red orb hanging off it, which she looks at curiously.

"Oh, you poor thing." Nanoha picks him up. He stares into her eyes with a strange kind of intelligence. "I'll fix you right up."

"Nanoha?"

She quickly stuffs him under her shirt and turns around.

"Oh, it's nothing. Let's go."

"You're weird sometimes."

When Nanoha gets home, she rushes to her room. She places the ferret on her desk. He has several wounds, opened from being jostled around. The girl looks down and realizes he bled all over her, and decides to replace her shirt with a less bloody one first. Strangely, the ferret seems to look away as she changes.

She goes back to him. She had been practicing this earlier with other injured animals, but this will be the first one she didn't cause the injury for testing. It really is good luck that she found him. Her hand hovers over him and reddish purple goo squirts out at him from a suddenly appearing hole in her hand. He tries to jump away but Nanoha focuses, holding him still with her psionic powers.

"Ah! Stop!" He yells. She can't yet, he hasn't been healed yet, silly ferret. Well, at least she can use her psionic powers to keep him still and not hurt himself.

Wait.

"You can talk? I didn't know I could make animals do that." Nanoha looks at her hand in wonder. She will have to look at the formula for this, she didn't think it affected the brain.

"I could always talk! I'm a human, get this stuff off of me."

Nanoha looks at him for a second. Yellow fur, medium sized tail, ferrety face, he's definitely a ferret. The only strange thing about his appearance is the red jewel hanging around his neck.

"You're a ferret," Nanoha argues. She must have jumbled his mind a bit. "I'm healing you, wait a minute."

She pushes her hands into the goo and focuses. She changes the molecular compounds to his own, which strangely enough seem to not be entirely like a normal ferret. She considers he might be right and absentmindedly apologizes, which for some reason just makes him struggle harder. She melds the last of it into his flesh then wipes her hands off.

"There, good as new."

"What did you do to me?" He stands up and backs out of reach of her.

"I healed you. You were injured."

"I-huh." He walks in a circle. "I guess I am better now. But still…"

Nanoha smiles. She is finally helping people with her unique talent. She has been practicing on wild animals for years perfecting this formula; most of them even lived!

He suddenly straightens out and looks at a mostly blank wall, as if he was looking at something. Nanoha follows his gaze but finds nothing.

"What?"

"I have to hurry." He runs out the house, quickly followed by Nanoha. On the street is a large gray blob-like creature with tendrils falling around it.

"What is that?"

"It is a construct made by a Jewel Seed, which are powerful ancient artifacts that were scattered. Thanks for the help, but now that I'm healed I can take care of it." Yuuno transforms into a nine year old boy with a flash of light. He has light brown hair and wears a brown cloak over a yellow vest that has green patterns on it.

Nanoha's eyes widen in shock. His transformation is so much easier than her own! She vows to get him to tell her how to do it.

The shadow construct chooses that moment to hit into them both. Nanoha hits the ground and quickly starts to heal her own internal bleeding, though she can see Yuuno is fine despite taking more of a hit.

"How are you so okay?"

"I have a Barrier Jacket, it protects me like a force field. Now get back before it hurts you!"

"I can help!" Nanoha frowns with determination and hits it with her telekinesis, throwing it into the air and meters away.

"Raising Heart, set up." Yuuno holds the red orb in his hand into the air. Nothing happens. He looks down at it. "Oh, fine. Be that way. If you want to help, catch!"

Nanoha catches the orb in her hands. She looks at it quizzically and extends her senses to it. It seems almost alive.

"If you want to help then repeat after me. I am the one who has been given a mission."

Nanoha considers for a moment. He clearly has powerful abilities. If he is offering them to her, why should she refuse?

"I am the one who has been given a mission." Nanoha clenches her fist around the jewel and closes her eyes.

"Under the contract, release those powers."

"Under the contract, release those powers."

"Winds to the sky, stars to the heavens."

"Winds to the sky, stars to the heavens. And the unyielding soul, to this heart! Magic to these hands! Raising Heart, set up!" She can feel the words that she needs to say coming from Raising Heart, which she now recognizes as the true name of the red orb.

"Standby, ready. Set up." She raises her hand at Raising Heart's words, holding her up, blasting a huge pink beam of magical energy into the sky.

"What power!" Yuuno exclaims, gaping. He seems to recover himself and says, "Imagine a magical wand to fight with and armor to protect you!"

"Okay!" With a flash of light, Nanoha wears new clothes and is holding Raising Heart who now looks like a pink staff with the head of it yellow metal curving around a red sphere. She wears a white and blue dress reminiscent of her school uniform, but underneath she has a full body covering of a brown chitinous material. Instead of boots, this material covers her feet giving the appearance of a shoe.

Apparently the shadow monster is done waiting, for it bounces toward her.

"Protection." A pink half sphere shield appears in front of Nanoha on Raising Heart's command. The construct spins into it, trying to out power her, but is overpowered instead and is flung back into several pieces which quickly begin to reform.

"You have to seal it now! Spells use mana put in equations to activate, which Raising Heart should have for you. You will know the words."

"Okay. Lyrical, Magical…" she begins to float in the air from while pointing her staff into the sky. "What needs to be sealed away is the ominous container. Seal the Jewel Seed!"

"Sealing Mode." Her staff shifts, three wings made of mana bursting out it's sides. It shoots several pink bindings toward the construct and they wrap around it. "Standby, ready."

"Lyrical, Magical, Jewel Seed, Serial 21, Seal!" Dozens of pink beams shoot out towards the construct and in a flash of pink light it is gone, a diamond shaped blue crystal its place. Wondering what to do next, she walks forward and touches her staff to the crystal upon Raising Heart's telepathic prompting.

"Jewel Seed: No. XXI." The blue crystal disappears into the staff, and in a flash of light Nanoha's new clothes disappear as well. Raising Heart settles on her neck in its standby form, as a necklace.

"Good job. I'm sorry for getting you involved in all this."

"Hmm?"

"The construct over there is a being powered by a magical stone, but… without Raising Heart I am not powerful enough to stop it. So I am asking for your help to protect this world. I can reward you, of course. You won't even have to do much."

Nanoha considers for a moment. If she helps him, she could learn more of his magic and have an adventure.

"Sure!"

"Thanks." He pauses for a moment. "Um, I don't actually have a place to stay."

"My house is right there. You can stay with me."

"Thank you. We can't tell anyone about magic though. It needs to be kept a secret from undeveloped worlds." Yuuno frowns.

"We just won't tell them about magic then. Just turn into a ferret again."

"That might just work. Thanks, um."

"Takamachi Nanoha."

"Thanks. I'm Yuuno Scrya. Scrya is the name of my clan who adopted me."

"Call me by name."

"Um, Nanoha?"

"That's right! Come on Yuuno, let's go."

They smile at each other awkwardly before he turns into a ferret and jumps onto her shoulder.

Nanoha opens the door to her house, ignoring the damaged street.

"Nanoha? What's that on your shoulder?" Miyuki, Nanoha's adopted older sister, answers the door. "He's so cute! Were you going to try to sneak him in without us knowing?"

"Um. No?"

"Mother will just go crazy over him. Let's go show her!" Miyuki picks Yuuno up and runs away.

"Hey!"

"Oh, what's this?" Shiro watched Miyuki walk by.

"Nanoha wants a pet. Isn't he cute?"

"Oh, he is!" Momoko sees him and takes him from Miyuki.

The family quickly decides to keep him, ignorant of Nanoha's silent protests that he isn't actually a ferret.

The next day Nanoha goes to school distracted.

 _"So you're telling me that I can train in a virtual world? I don't even have to physically do anything to get stronger?"_

 _"Yes, you're a mage now, so you can do all sorts of useful tricks like talking from far away and training,"_ Yuuno says.

 _"Okay. Raising Heart, activate it!"_

 _"Yes, my master,"_ Raising Heart telepathically replies. Another world overlays her own. In real life, she sits listening to class. In her mind, she is in her Barrier Jacket and practices her shooting.

"So Nanoha, what were you trying to hide from us yesterday?" Arisa asks Nanoha as the three girls sit at a table.

"Wh-what?"

"Arisa, she clearly didn't want us to know," Suzuka scolds.

"There was a bump under your shirt and it started staining red."

"Oh. Um. There was an injured ferret so I brought him home and he's my pet now." Nanoha smiles. She isn't even lying.

"Really? Did you name him?" Suzuka asks.

"His name is Yuuno."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Arisa leans in. "You should trust us."

"Oh, you know. Reasons."

"I don't know."

"I think it's just Nanoha being Nanoha. You know she sometimes acts strange." Suzuka smiles softly.

"Yeah, you are kinda weird."

"I am not!"

For the rest of the school day, Yuuno explains more about magic. They are ancient magical stones that originally granted wishes. But now they go out of control, mistakenly granting wishes by creating constructs of monsters. He worked at excavating ancient ruins and dig up the Jewel Seeds. He was bringing them back to his home planet when his ship got destroyed and the Jewels scattered. He came here to seal the stones and return them to safety. He has only found two out of the twenty one total so far.

 _"So you see, it's really all my fault. That's why I have to seal the Jewel Seeds."_

 _"It really isn't your fault, you didn't mean for it to happen."_

They stop talking for a minute.

 _"I've decided you don't have to get involved anymore. If I take Raising Heart I can seal them on my own. This is my responsibility."_

 _"No. No, I won't let you."_

 _"You want to keep Raising Heart?"_

 _"That's not what I meant. I'm going to help you. You don't have to do this in your own, you saw how strong I am. I can't help during school, but other than that I'm in."_

 _"It will be dangerous. More dangerous than last night at times."_

 _"I can handle it. I'm resilient. And I've gotten to know you, I can't leave you by yourself. Besides, if what happened last night keeps happening it could trouble people. I want to keep that from happening. If someone is need of help, you should help them out. My dad taught me that; there shouldn't have to be a decision."_

 _"Well. I think you have a lot more talent for being a mage than I do. So I'll teach you."_

 _"So that I can be a proper mage?"_

 _"You already are a proper mage. I can teach you to be a better one."_

 _"Okay! I'm going to get home and we can hang out together."_

Nanoha begins to walk home when she receives a text.

Honda: I wiL b comin 2 yor hows n an hr 2 TLK 2 U bout somTIN. pls b ther.

Nanoha winces at her agent's textspeak. Ever since she insisted he be less formal with her a year ago, he's taken it too far. Sure, she's only threatened to demand a different agent three times which would make him lose his job if he didn't comply with her minor demands, but if he didn't want to risk that he shouldn't be blackmailing her. She frowns at the thought of the evil government conspiracy that's hiding the zerg and making her let them do tests on the zerg.

She checks the time stamp and pales. It was sent fifty minutes ago! She runs home, dashing into her house.

 _"Nanoha? What's wrong?"_

Yuuno. She can't let the agent find out about him! Especially as he would have wanted her to tell him about magic right away. He could probably find something in her contract demanding it.

 _"Um, hey Yuuno, want to go to the park?"_

 _"Sure. Why didn't you just have me meet you there?"_

 _"Well I have to stay here, to do, um, homework."_

 _"So you wanted me to go to the park alone?"_

Suddenly, there is a knock on the door. Honda.

"I'll be there in a moment!"

 _"Who's that?_

 _"No one important. How about you just stay in my room for now?"_ Nanoha puts a fake smile on her face and opens the door, letting Honda in.

 _"Um, okay?"_

"Hey Mazda! What brings you here today?"

"You didn't report in your progress on that healing serum of yours."

Ah, right. When she told them what she was doing they told her to send a weekly progress report, which she should have done yesterday.

"Um, oops?"

He sighs. "Just make a report today. You are only nine, but you really should become more responsible. In the real world you can't be late on deadlines."

"Um, okay. I'll make sure to do that."

"Good. I'm glad nothing else was needed." He walks out the house, and Nanoha decides to read his mind. _Alien my foot, that's a stupid little girl. Making me waste my time, if I didn't have to keep her on our 'good side' I could keep her disciplined for real. I could be getting real work done if_ John _didn't make me see her personally, stupid American._

Nanoha lets her smile fade. Stupid government agent himself! She needs some time to relax.

 _"Hey Yuuno, lets go to the park."_

 _"For real, or am I going alone aga-"_

Suddenly, she feels something. A wave of powerful energy. She pauses, then starts to run, hearing Yuuno do the same.

 _"A Jewel Seed just executed! We need to go there now."_ They leave the house in sync, heading for the disturbance.

Nanoha and Yuuno run up a large staircase, reaching it at about the same time. At the top is a dog-like creature with four eyes and large claws, purple metallic horns hitting out its head and its sharp teeth dripping saliva down into the ground.

"It's already taken an animal. It'll be stronger now that it has a physical form."

"It's so cute!" Nanoha begins walking toward it with her arms wide as if to hug it. Surely it won't be mean like the last Jewel Seed.

"What? Nanoha, boot up Raising Heart!"

"Um. I don't know how." Nanoha stops and holds Raising Heart in her fist.

"Start at I am the one who has been given a mission."

"I have to recite that whole thing?"

"Yes!"

The dog monster runs toward them and jumps into the air.

"Round Shield!" A green circle laden with mystic symbols appears in front of Yuuno and the creature bounces off.

"Raising Heart, please just work!"

"Standby ready, set up." Raising Heart glows pink through Nanoha's fist. In a flash of pink light Nanoha's Barrier Jacket is on and she holds Raising Heart as a staff.

"You have to seal it!"

"Okay. Raising Heart?"

"Sealing Mode, set up. Stand by ready." Nanoha points her staff at the dog and pink magic robes shoot out at it, wrapping it up.

"Lyrical, Magical, Jewel Seed Serial 16… seal!"

"Sealing." The dog creature is annihilated in a burst of pink light from the bindings and the blue jewel comes down. "Receipt: No. XVI."

"Did I do well?"

"Yes, you did great."

Nanoha blushes at the praise and Yuuno smiles.

—

He hears a creak. Yuuno opens an eye. Nanoha is getting up from her bed and leaving, taking Raising Heart with her. That's strange, what could she possibly be doing in the middle of the night? Yuuno gets up and follows her.

She quickly goes outside and starts to jog, not even changing from her night clothes. He knew there was something… off about her from the moment he met her. Perhaps now he will see what it is.

When she reaches the forest, she moves into a full out run. Yuuno has to transform into a human and track her with an Area Search sphere to follow, being far outpaced. He didn't know she was a runner, though he himself isn't exactly unfit. He continues like this for almost half an hour before he gives up. He'll just have to ask her in the morning.

Then Nanoha stops. Curious, he starts walking towards her again and dispels his Area Search to save mana. When he reaches her location, he gasps.

Large organic structures surrounded by almost a dozen horrible dog monsters on what seems to be living ground are in front of him. And in the midst of it all is Nanoha, petting one of them and is-is eating the ground?! He pinches himself, sure that he is dreaming. He doesn't wake up. This is a living nightmare.

"Th-" he stops himself before he gives himself away by saying it aloud.

Nanoha turns around and looks right at him, purple creep dripping off her teeth. He stopped himself too late.

"N-Nanoha?"

"You shouldn't have seen this. Now I have to deal with you."


	3. Chapter Two

Yuuno has followed her here. How annoying, now she has to get him to not say anything. As she watches, he seems to go increasingly pale. He better not be thinking she is going to kill him, just like that. They're friends!

"Promise not to tell anyone?"

"Um. What is this?"

"It's the hive cluster. It's where I was born. I'm not, um, human, exactly."

"This… explains some things. Like you being able to heal me. And that government guy you thought you hid from me."

"Yeah. Hey, meet Zrok!" She pushes cute zergling at him. He relunctantly pets him, or rather, he puts his palm on Zrok's head for a moment before taking several steps back. How rude, not letting Zrok for even a moment. She will have to forgive him, though. It is his first time here after all. She'll get him to do more later.

"I really can't risk you telling anyone about this though. Even if you are my friend."

"I think maybe I should. The TSAB, they're an interdimensional governent, they can help here."

"No. Tell _no one_." Nanoha frowns. She doesn't want to be between two governments both blackmailing her.

"If we're friends then shouldn't we help each other? Let me fix the Lost Logia problem. Uh, Lost Logia are ancient powerful items like the Jewel Seeds."

Well that was random. The Jewel Seeds have nothing to do with this.

"I'm still helping you seal the Jewel Seeds. You can't stop me from doing that!"

"You have to let me go to do that then. I can't hunt the Jewel Seeds from here."

"Well, I guess." That was the plan the whole time. Nanoha walks up very close to Yuuno. "But you have to promise not to tell anyone."

"Okay. I swear."

Nanoha smiles. He may have found her secret, but surely he won't tell anyone. After all, friends don't tattle on each other.

"Wait here a moment with Zrok. I want to do something before we go back."

"O-okay."

Nanoha walks further into the hive cluster. All her life, it has been both her home and the most dangerous place to be. But with Raising Heart's help… she closes her fist around her.

The changeling walks up to a zergling. Zerg control each other through a psionic hive mind, lead by the strongest queen. There is no queen here, so they have all been feral and act on their own. She has never been powerful enough to override many other zerg, except for short times to keep them docile, but with Raising Heart she might be.

Nanoha psionically reaches out to the zergling. She's has Raising Heart amplify her strength, as magic and psionic powers seem to be very similar. The zergling bows, now serving her. She smiles. The zerg leader looks at the rest and takes control of them one by one. At this point, she is normally overwhelmed by controlling too many, her mostly human mind unable to multitask enough to control multiple bodies. But Raising Heart takes over that task for her.

Nanoha practices moving the zerg around, making them march in formations. She has one dance and giggles at the absurdity of it. She skips over to her friends.

"Yuuno, look, I did it!"

"You did what?"

"I'm controlling them! I haven't been able to do that before but now I can thanks to Raising Heart."

"That's, um, great." Yuuno gives her a half-hearted smile.

"I know! It's getting kinda late though. Or early I guess." Nanoha releases the zerg from her control. They immediately stop walking in exact patterns and instead move around randomly. Two start fighting each other out of sight.

"Yeah."

"Time to run back to the house!"

"I can teleport us, actually."

"You can teleport?"

"Yeah. You should have, um, Zrok, move out of the way first though."

"Okay. Zrok, move. Sorry I couldn't stay longer." The zergling walks away from the two children and a green circle appears beneath them. The hive around them disappears, only to be replaced by Nanoha's room.

Teleportation, now that will be useful. Now she won't have to travel for such a long time to get to the hive cluster, she can just have Yuuno take her there.

"Yuuno. Am I… scary?" Nanoha sits down on her bed while Yuuno transforms back into a ferret.

"A little. Just, the whole, man eating swarm of monsters is your home part."

"Are they really that bad?"

"Yes." Yuuno shudders.

"You know I wouldn't, like, kill everyone in the city right?" She had found a virus that could turn humans into mindless zerg, which would likely be like a zombie apocalypse. Even though she is zerg herself, she swore never to use it because she is human now.

"You could do that? How?"

"I wouldn't of course."

"That's… can you be sure the hive cluster won't do it on its own?"

She considers this. She is the smartest being there, so it is unlikely it would do so. However, if it made a queen, the ruling class if the zerg, it could act on its own then. With the zerg's natural instincts, it wouldn't be nice.

"Yes, of course. I have everything under control."

Nanoha sits at a café, taking a break for the day. Yuuno sits across from her, in his human form for once.

"You've done very well so far. We've already sealed five Jewel Seeds, so only sixteen to go."

"Thanks." Nanoha blushes. "But Yuuno, I've been wondering something. If your ship crashed, how are you going to get the Jewel Seeds back to your home planet?"

"Oh, that's simple. I can use Dimensional Transfer, a spell that lets you teleport between dimensions. Typically it is used with a booster room to make it easier, but I won't be in a hurry."

"Huh. Could you teach me that spell?" If she's could learn it, she could take the Hive Cluster onto another world. Then it wouldn't be in risk of being discovered anymore. And, of course, then people who go near it wouldn't be routinely killed. That's important too.

"Sure. I think it should be lower on our priority list for now though."

Nanoha opens her mouth to argue when she feels it: a Jewel Seed execution. She gets up and runs out the café, followed by Yuuno.

"Hey, you have to pay!"

"Sorry!" Nanoha places several hundred yen on the table then runs out the door again. Outside, it is clear what is happening. A giant tree has spread throughout the city, giving the appearance of dozens of trees.

"We'll have to search each of them. I'll go right you go left."

"No. Raising Heart, set up! Wide Area Search!" Nanoha activates her Barrier Jacket then raises her staff. Several dozen spheres come out of it, spinning around and heading to each tree. She can see exactly what each one of them sees, giving her vision of exactly where the Jewel Seed is. She jumps onto a nearby building, quickly followed by Yuuno. "I've found it."

"You can't hit it from all the way back here!"

"Raising Heart, shooting mode." She aims her staff forward as it transforms. Two pink wings fly out the side, and the head of the staff straightens out to become a forked spear. Several pink circles appear around and in front of the head of the staff, stabilizing its aim.

"Divine Buster!" A large pink beam flies out the front of the staff, hitting into the tree. The Jewel Seed is forcibly sealed, the rest of the roots around the city disappearing.

"So much power and talent. She's already much stronger than me." Yuuno mutters to himself, but Nanoha ignores him in favor of focusing.

"Alright! Jewel Seed sealed!"

The next day Nanoha gets a text while lying on her bed late abt night.

Honda: wen wer U goin 2 teL me U c%d shoot laser beams?

How does he know? This could be a problem.

Nanoha: What?

Honda: We had an agent n d area hu saw it. d trE covering d neighborhood wasn't inconspicuous eithR.

Well that makes sense.

Honda: jst com hEr & we'll TLK. I'm d agency building.

Nanoha: Okay, I'm coming.

He's asking her to come to him instead of going to her which means he wants the home ground. Well this time she has a ferret on her side!

"Yuuno!"

"Wh-what?" Yuuno gets up and yawns.

"You know the government agent who you spied on me talking to?"

"I didn't spy on you this house just has really thin walls and you talk loud-"

"He discovered I have magic."

"Oh. How?"

"He saw me seal the tree Jewel Seed."

"I suppose it was inevitable. The Jewel Seeds are rather obvious. But we can't say anything more than what he already knows."

"Right." Nanoha gets dressed and then Yuuno hops on her shoulder. They walk to the PSIA building while Nanoha explains what they are to Yuuno.

 _"So basically, the Public Security Intelligence Agency finds information to keep the country safe, and they're keeping you safe from public knowledge while studying the zerg."_ Yuuno summarizes.

 _"Yup."_

Nanoha pulls open the door and walks up to the reception desk.

"Hi, I'm Takamachi Nanoha. I have an appointment with Honda."

"Go on in." The secretary doesn't even bother to check if she does have one, used to her coming in.

Nanoha sits in the only other chair of Honda's office, a creaky wooden one compared to his fancy cushioned chair. It used to be cushioned as well, but when she accidentally broke it–totally his fault–he replaced it with a bad one.

"Nanoha. I would like to know-why did you bring your pet ferret?"

"You brought me just to know why I brought my pet ferret? That's silly I thought you were upset."

"I see you aren't taking this seriously."

"No, I am. He's my backup to explain."

"You brought your pet ferret to help you expl-you know what, whatever. Just explain what happened and why you didn't tell me earlier."

 _"Don't tell him anything about magic he doesn't already know. In fact, ask him what he knows."_

"Well what do you know? I don't want to repeat things."

"I think I'm going to hold off on telling you. It shouldn't be a problem, just tell me everything."

"Right. Um, okay. So I found Yuuno in the forest and healed him since he was injured. He had the staff you saw that let's me shoot beams, and now I've been stopping attacks like that tree from killing the, um, people here."

"Yuuno is the ferret, yes? And he had the 'staff'."

"Yup."

"And why didn't you give the dangerous weapon you found on a wild animal to us?"

"He's not a wild animal! And only I can use it."

"So it's a biological weapon only zerg can use."

"What? No. Only I can use it because I have a high potential of, um,"

 _"Dimensional resonance. Which, by the way, isn't actually how it works."_

"Of dimensional reso-resonance to use the dimensional abilities of resounding dimensional space. You couldn't use it at all."

"This is like something straight out of an anime," he mutters. "Alright. And why didn't you tell us to get support? You can't fight by yourself."

"I'm not, I have Yuuno."

"A _ferret_ is helping you fight monsters straight out of a TV show."

"Yup."

" _How._ How could he possibly help you more than an entire government agency–that you're _supposed_ to tell whenever anything supernatural happens."

"Um."

Yuuno begins to float.

"He can fly. Your pet ferret can fly. Well that's just wonderful, this day hasn't been crazy enough. I need to get official orders on what to do here. Nanoha, get out."

"Okay!" He didn't ban her from continuing being a mage, so that's practically an endorsement.

 _"I think that went well Yuuno. How about you?"_

 _"It wasn't as bad as I feared, but… still bad."_

Days later, Nanoha prowls through the streets, with Yuuno just behind her as a human again. She has a day off from school today, so she decided to search for some Jewel Seeds more. Yuuno suggested she take a break and hang out with her friends, but this is more important.

Then she senses it; a Jewel Seed activates.

 _"Yuuno, let's go!"_

 _"Right. Let me set up a barrier to prevent public view."_ A green magic circle appears in front of him, and after a few moments a semisphere spreads throughout the city. Colors bleach out inside, as they move very slightly through space and time, out of the normal world.

Nanoha nods then rubs toward the disturbance. She runs into Suzuka's forest. She owns a mansion, so has a very big backyard. A giant cat stands in a clearing, doing nothing; the cat must have been the one to activate the Jewel Seed. Above the cat is a blond flying girl dressed in all black and holding a mechanical axe. She looks to be about to shoot the cat with magic.

"Stop! That's my cat!"

"No," the girl responds in a flat voice.

"Suzuka is my friend and that's her cat so you can't hurt her!"

"No. I need to get the Jewel Seed. Get out of my way. Bardiche, Photon Lancer Full Autofire." A yellow magic circle appears in front of her and yellow spheres burst out of it, hitting the giant cat and exploding.

Nanoha responds by jumping on top of the cat.

"Nanoha! Activate your Barrier Jacket!"

"What? Oh yeah." She grabs Raising Heart, but just before she can activate it is hit with one of the Photon Lancers. She falls off the cat in a spray of blood.

"I apologize, but I'm taking the Jewel Seed with me."

"Ugh, why'd you hit me?" Nanoha gets up, one of her arms hanging loosely. Fate notices and takes a step backward in mid-air, eyes widening as she is seemingly horrified at the injury she inflicted. Nanoha just stands up straight, staring into the girl's eyes. "Raising Heart, set up!"

"Standby, ready." In a flash, Nanoha is wearing her Barrier Jacket and holding her staff with her uninjured arm.

"Flyer Fin!" Pink wings float around her feet and she starts to float. "Why do you want the Jewel Seeds?"

"I must collect them. Go with your friend and leave, you are too injured to fight."

Nanoha narrows her eyes. She charges forward, hitting her staff against the other girl's own. She stares into the girl's lonely eyes.

"Why? Why do you need to take them?"

"It doesn't matter to you." The darkly dressed girl backs away, creating distance. "Bardiche, scythe mode."

Her axe splits, and yellow energy comes out both sides to form a scythe. She quickly switches direction, ramming into Nanoha.

"Round Shield!" Yuuno flies in front of her, and a green spell circle forms in front of him, blocking Fate. "Nanoha, seal the Jewel Seed! I'll hold her off."

"No, we have to settle this between us. Hey, I'm Takamachi Nanoha. What's your name!"

"My name is Testarossa Fate. And I told you to back down. Arc Saber!" She swings her scythe and its blade flies toward Nanoha before being blocked by Yuuno's shield.

"That's the same type of intelligent device as Raising Heart! She's must be from my planet as well. Nanoha, you have to seal the Jewel Seed."

"Not yet!" Nanoha flies around him, ramming her staff into Fate's scythe, the blade of which just barely doesn't reach her dress armor. She now moves her injured arm, stabbing the sharp bone into Fate's side.

"Ow! What?"

"Just stay so we can talk!"

"You stabbed me with your-with your bone. What _are_ you?"

"A perfectly ordinary magical girl!"

Fate doesn't respond. She finally manages to break away, bleeding just a pinprick of blood. She flies through the sky away, leaving Nanoha far behind.

"This could be trouble." Yuuno looks at her retreating figure, concerned.

"She is so _strong_ , and has such pretty hair and eyes…" Nanoha stares into the distance, her mangled and bone sharpened arm hanging limp by her side.

"Nanoha!"

That night, Nanoha lays in bed with Raising Heart around her neck. She reaches her senses out to the hive cluster, and focuses on the hatchery.

Earlier that day, when she fought Fate, she knew the girl didn't want to actually hurt her. So she decided to help her. Not with collecting the Jewel Seeds; those are hers. No, clearly this is just like the anime she watches. Fate is a good girl who isn't being forced or tricked into being evil. Otherwise she would have just beaten them in a fight instead of retreating. It is now Nanoha's job to save her!

Which she is doing by creating special spores in the hatchery. Next time she goes there she's can pick them up and then put them on Fate when they next fight. That way she can track her.

Ooh! How about she make them integrate with Fate's nervous system? Then Fate will be just like her! Or, more human still. She's doesn't want to take away the poor girl's free will, just make it so she can't fight her anymore. Yes, that will work.

So they will have to be ingested, so they can go through the digestive process and get into the blood. Then they will form a small organ around the top of the spinal cord and integrate with it. That'll make Fate apart of the hive mind without actually changing her brain. Perfect!

Nanoha finishes programming it then orders a zergling to carry it to test. It finds a large house cat prowling the woods. Perfect. She has it throw the spores, covering the cat with them. The cat screeches and runs away. When it thinks it has escaped it starts licking itself. Now just time to wait.

Several hours later, it begins to have an effect. The cat's neck bulges as the organ appears on it. Well that won't do, Fate would have a giant bump on he back of her neck. Time to try again.

Several tries later and Nanoha finally thinks she succeeds. Now the spores, which she has made too small to easily see, have to go directly into the blood stream. But once they do, they will congregate around the entire spinal cord and form a thin layer of neural biomass. It only takes a few hours on the animal she tested it on, but she suspects it may take a few days to completely grow on a mage. This won't completely integrate Fate into the hive mind, but will give her limited access to it.

Now she just has to infest Fate with it.

"So I was wondering. What _is_ that barrier you used the other day?" Nanoha asks Yuuno as they wander the city.

"It's a small temporal shift. Essentially we go in a pocket dimension."

"What's a pocket dimension?"

"Well, it's like this. Imagine a table with a piece of paper on top of it. Then pick up the paper. That's like the barrier. When the paper is down, drawing on it might leak the ink into the table, staining it. But when you pick it up it doesn't affect anything anymore."

"That makes sense. So since you said you live on a different world, is that like a table stacked on top of this one?"

"Yeah, that works. Except it isn't always linear–hey, isn't that your family's coffee shop?" Yuuno asks.

"Yeah. Did you want to see inside?"

"Sure."

The two nine-year olds walk inside, only to bump into someone.

"Oh, sorry!" The woman towers above Nanoha, wearing far less than appropriate in public and has strangely orange hair. But the most peculiar thing about her is the stone on her forehead.

 _"You. Stay away from Fate."_ The woman laughs aloud. "Oh, it's not problem. Here, let's sit down for a moment."

Nanoha and Yuuno exchange looks. This woman is not who she seems.

 _"How do you know Fate? Who are you?"_ Nanoha asks.

"Oh no, we really have to be going." Yuuno pulls Nanoha away by the arm, intent on staying away from the woman who leaks danger.

 _"My name is Arf. And that's none of your business as long as you stay away."_

 _"Too bad! She's going to be my friend and then we'll work together."_

Arf blinks. _"Wait, what?"_ Then she seems to be distracted by something and runs in a specific direction.

That's strange, that she just ran off like that. Even though Yuuno was dragging Nanoha away it's not like they couldn't keep talking.

"We're following her," she tells Yuuno, breaking off to run. He quickly follows, running after her.

"Stop following me!" Arf yells upon seeing them behind her. She ducks into an alley and transforms, flying into the sky. Now she has wolf ears and a tail, though her clothes aren't much different. Nanoha runs into the same alley and activates her Barrier Jacket, flying after her.

"Stop flying in public! You'll be seen!" Yuuno yells but they both ignore him. He sighs, then activated his own Barrier Jacket and flies after them.

Doesn't he know this is more important than keeping it a secret? No one looks up anyways, everyone knows that. It won't matter if they are a little obvious.

It soon becomes clear they are heading to the forest. Fate is already there, Jewel Seed in hand, looking surprised at the large party.

"Fate!" Nanoha and Arf yell at the same time then turn to each other. "You get away from her!"

Arf tries to claw at Nanoha but is pulled back by chains. She give some an appreciated nod to Yuuno, then rushes over to Fate and the Jewel Seed. Fate quickly absorbs it into Bardiche, then goes into a fighting stance.

"There is no reason to stay now that I have the Jewel Seed."

"There is!"

"No, there isn't." Fate shakes her head sadly and turns away. "Arf, come."

Nanoha takes some spores she stored in her skin and throws them at Fate's back.

"What was that?"

"My offer of friendship! We don't have to fight, just talk!"

Fate considers that for a moment.

"Then don't fight. Let me take the Jewel Seeds."

"You'll never get them all without talking to me. I have several already."

"Then let's make a deal. We fight, and whoever wins gets one of the other's Jewel Seeds. Scythe Form!" Fate doesn't give Nanoha time to respond, rushing at her. They clash staves before Nanoha kicks Fate's legs and pushes away.

"Shooting mode!" Nanoha points the two prongs of Raising Heart's new form at Fate. "Divine Buster!"

"Sonic Move." Fate disappears from the blast target, landing on the ground so fast Nanoha couldn't even track her. Bardiche returns to normal for a moment. "Photon Lancer."

"Prote-" Nanoha begins her shield spell when Arf pushes her over. The wolf woman claws at her ineffectually for a moment before jumping off, several photon lancers hitting into Nanoha that very moment.

"Chain Bind!" Several chains burst out from Yuuno's spell circle binding Fate and pulling her to the ground.

Arf, now a giant wolf, jumps into Yuuno, bowling him over and stopping the spell.

"Blitz Action." Fate had used the time to return Bardiche to scythe form and rushing toward Nanoha, pushing her to the ground again and putting the blade up to her neck. "Give up a Jewel Seed."

"No! Not unti-" Nanoha is interrupted by Raising Heart releasing one Jewel Seed, and floating it away.

"Good." Fate walks toward it, ready to take it. She swings Bardiche at it when suddenly Nanoha blocks it with her own staff, coming from the other side. They both push harder against the other as the Jewel Seed between them pulses with energy.

"Nanoha, Fate, stop!" Yuuno runs toward them but is too late. Both staves crack, and a giant explosion overwhelms them both, pushing everyone away from the Jewel Seed.

Nanoha lies on the ground in pain. She slowly pushes herself up only to see Fate take the Jewel Seed in hand. She's closes both hands around it despite the blue light leaking everywhere, and a yellow spell circle appears around her as she falls to her knees. It fades and she tries to stand up only to collapse. Arf picks her up and snarls before running away.

"Why are you smiling?" Yuuno asks her.

Fate got away this time, but Nanoha managed to throw her spores onto her. With any luck she will soon have a direct line to her mind, and then even Fate can't ignore her.

"Oh, no reason."

The next day, Nanoha decides to hang out with her friends. The explosion the night before damaged Raising Heart so Yuuno put his foot down and said not to use it until it finishes its self-repair routines. She walks alongside them after school with a smile on her face.

"Hey Arisa, hey Suzuka!"

"Hey Nanoha. Finally done staring into space and ignoring everyone?" Arisa says sarcastically.

"Hey, I'm not that bad!"

"Um. You ignored my suggestion to hang out together yesterday," Suzuka adds.

"I was busy!"

"With a boy. I saw you walking with him. Who is he?" Arisa asks, smirking.

"What? Oh, you mean Yuuno."

"Um, didn't you name your ferret Yuuno?" Suzuka asks.

"Um. Maybe? Hey, let's hang out today."

"Sure. We haven't done that in a while."

Nanoha smiles. She isn't that close to her friends due to all their differences but she still enjoys hanging out with them. Then her phone rings.

Honda: Nanoha U hav 2 teL us wen U git nu powers.

Nanoha: I was going to. Also please stop texting like that.

Honda: Finally. You have no idea how much I hated doing that. Now go home and write out a complete list of your powers.

"Nanoha? Who are you texting?"

Nanoha: I'm doing something, I'll do that later.

"No one important. Let's go." Nanoha turns her phone off and tucks it in her pocket with a smile.

—

Fate stands on her apartment building's rooftop with Arf, holding a box of treats in her newly healed hands.

"You think your mother will be satisfied with these?" Arf takes them off her master's hands.

"It's the thought that counts." Fate hopes her mother will like these. She used to be so kind… she's just awkward now. Doesn't make her true feelings known. She's surely loves her.

"Dimensional Transfer, Dimensional Coordinates 876C4419 3312D699 3583A1460 779F3125". Fate recites the coordinates somberly as a yellow spell circle appears around her and Arf. "Open, doors of luring. To the Guarden of Time, to the master of the Testarossas!"

A yellow sphere appears around them with the radius of the spell circle. A yellow beam bursts upward, carrying the passengers with it to a different dimension.

Fate steps into the ship. She looks ahead at the door in front of her as Arf hands her the box of treats for her mother. She will surely know she is here.

"Arf, stay. I will see my mother alone."

"But-alright. But I'm staying close."

Fate nods. It won't be needed, of course. She doesn't need protection from her mother no matter what her familiar might think. She walks into the room she was told to report in. Large and circular, it is elegant enough to have been a ball room in it's prime. Now it is empty, save for two chains hanging from the ceiling with cuffs small enough to fit a nine year old's hand.

"Fate. You have returned." Precia looks down at Fate from her thrown at the end of the room. She has gray skin, and hollowed eyes with a weariness greater than Fate can imagine.

"Yes, mother. I brought you some tr-" The box is whipped out of her hands, falling into the floor.

"How many Jewel Seeds did you collect?"

"Three. I've taken three."

"Three? Only three?" Precia waves her staff and the chains latch onto Fate's arms, holding her up into the air. "That is pathetic. Fate, you are my daughter. The sole daughter of the great mage Precia Testarossa. You should have done better than that."

"I'm sorry." Fate begins to cry at her failure. Precia begins to walk close to Fate.

"You must accomplish anything at-wait." Precia holds her staff out and scans Fate. "Poison! You bring poison into my home?"

"Wh-what? No!"

"Lies! It must have been implanted on you then. You wouldn't dare lie to me. There is only one cure for this." Precia shoots lightning at the box of treats, burning it. She then points her whip at her daughter and does the same. Fate screams in pain, but it only lasts a few seconds. "You should be thanking me. I just saved you from an eternity of worse than death."

"Th-thank you, mother."

"Humph. You must bring me the rest of the Jewel Seeds and don't bring shame upon yourself." She seems to pause for a second. "And kill whoever put those spores on you. Destroy them utterly, burned to a crisp. But you are a kind child, and are prone to being too nice."

Precia's staff transforms into a gray whip. Fate simply keeps looking down in shame.

"Which is why I would like to remind you of your duty to me."

—

Nanoha rushes into Uminari Seaside Park with Yuuno. They sensed a Jewel Seed had executed, so hurried there as soon as they could with Raising Heart now fully repaired. Yuuno quickly puts down a barrier, and Nanoha prepares for battle.

A giant tree was the result, monstrous though immobile. Fate shoots dozens of Photon Lancers at it, all blocked by a magic shield.

"Flyer Fin!" Nanoha flies high into the air, followed by Yuuno shortly after.

"Arc Saber." Bardiche turns into a scythe once more and Fate flings it's blade far away from her, cutting through the tree's roots.

"Divine Buster!" Nanoha shoots the tree with a pink beam coming from the forks of her staff. The tree blocks it with a barrier, roaring in anger.

"Thunder Smasher." A small spell circle appears in front of her and she slams her axe into it, prompting a beam of yellow magic to come bursting at the tree. The two beams hit it at once, overwhelming the tree. It disappears, the Jewel Seedbed rising above.

"Jewel Seed Serial VII, seal!" Nanoha and Fate yell at the same time. Their energies clash, causing nothing more than an explosion. Nanoha uses that time to dash to Fate, throwing more spores onto her.

"Sonic Move!" Fate dashes away to Nanoha's original position, almost dodging the spores. But not quite, so Nanoha smirks. They both dash at the Jewel Seed.

"What did you just do?" Fate asks, scowling.

"Nothing! But I think we should avoid jolting the Jewel Seeds. If something like before happened again…"

"Right, but I can't give it up."

"Device Form."

"Device Mode." Both devices exit their sealing mode.

"I just want to talk. I am not a simple naive human child. If I beat you, will you listen to my story?"

Nanoha stares into Fate's pretty eyes. Fate nods in understanding. The two girls race toward each other, readying their stages to battle.

"Stop!" In a flash of light a boy appears. He wears a black, uniform with spikes sticking out the sides. She appreciates the spikes aesthetic, but he could choose any color, and he decided the most evil looking combination. He has his own staff, blocking both girl's attacks at once. "Combat here is too dangerous. I'm an Enforcer from the Time-Space Administration Bureau, Chrono Harlaown. Would you tell me the details of this case?"

Everyone freezes. Nanoha frowns at this unexpected arrival. He's interfering with her chance to befriend Fate. Time-Space Administration Bureau… she thinks Yuuno mentioned them at some point. They're government. If they find out who she really is, there's no telling what they will do to her. No, she's has to get all her friends away from this man.

"Everyone calm down. If you were to continue fighting…" The three of them slowly float to the ground. Nanoha notices Arf is trying to break free of Yuuno's bindings in a desperate attempt to attack.

"Fate, we need to retreat! Get away from them!" Arf struggles in Yuuno's binds, tearing them off her.

"I'm the archaeologist who first found these Lost Logia. Um, a little help?" Yuuno explains to the enforcer.

"No, stay away from him!" Nanoha pushes the evil man away and grabs onto Fate, pulling her over to Yuuno and Arf.

"Hey! Stop right there!" Chrono begins chasing after them, pointing his staff at them.

"What are you doing Nanoha?" Yuuno seems to freeze at her aggression toward Chrono. Arf takes the chance to escape, striding to Fate in wolf form and picking her up then leaping away. Nanoha looks at them sadly. She never did get to tell Fate her story. Of course, she can just tell her later when the infestation sets in.

"What do you want?" Nanoha points her staff at Chrono.

"I want a report on what happened in the incident so far. Just come onto my ship, the Arthra."

He wants her to go on his ship. Surely he won't let her off. No, this in addition to his evil costume proves one point; the space government is just like the normal one. They probably just want to do experiments on her.

"No. Yuuno, let's go."

"Um. Nanoha, I think we should go with him. They know what they're doing. They can help us."

"And what would they do if they knew my secret?"

"Help of course!"

Nanoha reads his mind. He is planning on telling them about her and truly believes they would help. She shakes her head at his naivety. She hasn't lived under blackmail for years to just agree to another government's supervision.

"No. I can't trust you not to tell them then. Flier Fin." Nanoha flies over to Yuuno and picks him up in a bridal carry, ignoring his shocked protests. He quickly shuts up when she growls at him, his eyes widening.

"Let him go! If you keep going, I will treat it as a kidnapping."

"Divine Shooter!" Nanoha shoots several pink spheres at Chrono who effortlessly blocks them with a blue Round Shield. When the dust clears, Nanoha is already flying away.

"Should I pursue? Right, find their base first. I'll come back in a moment then." Chrono seems to be talking to someone, but she cannot hear the response.

"Nanoha, are you kidnapping me?" Yuuno asks her. "Um, I can teleport."

"You promised not to tell anyone about me."

"And I won't! Let's just go back. If we run we'll be in bigger trouble." Yuuno swallows nervously.

"No. No, I need to deal with you. For real."


	4. Chapter Three

AN: I got some problems pointed out with this chapter on the other website I put it on so you may not want to read it yet. To be specific, apparently Nanoha is OOC. I'll either have it updated by Friday or it won't be updated at all though so if you want to read just the fixed version check then. I'm still posting this now because I did say I'd be updating every Sunday. UPDATE: This entire chapter and the end of chapter two is being redone. On Sunday, if I finish it by then, there will be a new Chapter Three. It will be almost entirely new content and this chapter will be deleted.

"Nanoha, that's your house down there. You missed it." Yuuno nervously laughs.

"I know. We're not going there."

"Then where-no. We're not going to the hive cluster."

"I thought I was the one kidnapping you?"

"Nanoha! This isn't funny."

"You wanted to reveal me to them."

"Yes, but they can help you! The TSAB isn't bad."

"Then why did Arf have such a bad reaction to them?"

"She's a criminal."

"You don't know that."

"They've been stealing the Jewel Seeds."

"Oh, right. I'm still not going back. Fate needs me to be her friend. Besides, government organizations are evil."

"That's not… you're not going to change your mind."

"Nope."

Nanoha finally reaches the hive cluster and lands. She reaches out through Raising Heart and takes control of all the Zerg there, forcing them to her will. She can keep Yuuno here, there is already a design to keep human subjects asleep and alive for long periods of time. Since she can't trust him that's the only-actually, there is another way.

"Yuuno. I know a way for me to trust you."

"How?"

"I can make it so you have limited access to the hive mind. That way I'll know for sure you won't tell anyone anything."

He looks around at the hive cluster and shudders. "Is it permanent?"

"Very." Nanoha smiles. Surely he'll agree, who wouldn't want to improve themselves-

"Please don't," he says in a small voice.

"Fine. Restrict Lock" Nanoha binds each of his limbs with a spell circle, holding him in place.

"Nanoha? Nanoha, what are you doing!"

"You'll be fine. I promise to finish sealing the Jewel Seeds, don't worry." She carries him into the hatchery and sets him against a wall. An egg slowly grows over him and fills with fluid, despite his shrieks. It finishes, and she releases the bindings. Nothing happens. Good! She walks out of the hatchery, content that he will be fine until this is all over.

"Takamachi Nanoha, you are under arrest for the kidnapping of a Bureau citizen. Please deactivate your device and you will get to defend yourself in trial." Chrono, the enforcer from earlier, floats just above the creep, pointing his staff at her.

"You go away! This is my home." She has her five Zerglings, other than Zrok, slowly surround him and move closer.

Chrono says nothing. He shoots several bolts out of his staff at Nanoha while the Zerglings pounce on him simultaneously.

"Protection." A pink half sphere blocks the attack. "Shooting mode."

Nanoha aims her staff at Chrono, who quickly rises into the air outside the range of the Zerglings.

"Divine Buster!" He doesn't quite manage to dodge the attack, and it breaks through his half-formed shield making him fall onto the creep below. The Zerglings pounce on him, tearing at his Barrier Jacket. He swings his staff around, hitting several of them and shooting his blasts at the rest. A blue spell circle appears under him, and the enforcer teleports away while the Zerglings regroup.

Three Zerglings unconscious. And he was unprepared that time. Next time he'll do better. That gives Nanoha one choice to keep her freedom.

She orders one of the larvae at the hatchery, worm-like armored creatures that serve to morph into other Zerg, to become an overlord. It curls up into a ball and forms a green cocoon. She orders the others to become Zerglings, creating six more in total.

A few minutes later it finishes. A balloon like creature emerges and floats into the air, spikes dotting it's top and claws hanging down. One of the few Zerg with psionic potential, it controls lesser Zerg such as Zerglings… and her. She had refrained from making one in fear it would control her, but hopefully Raising Heart will protect her.

She feels it take direct control over the Zerglings, the strain on her own mind lessening. It reaches out to her and she fights the control, establishing her own dominance over it. It doesn't fight, not truly having a mind of its own.

Nanoha smiles in relief. It was a risk, but a necessary one. Now she has a command structure, and the ability to control more Zerg. She can expand her hive.

The new leader of the hive mind makes a few more overlords and several more Zerglings, giving her a combat force of sixteen and several more for defense. She creates several drones, crablike creatures with wings out their sides which are the base worker unit and can transform into structures. She immediate sends the drones to start taking wildlife and plants to restore her biomass reserves.

She also creates Spine and Spore Crawlers all over the creep. The former have a spiked base, and in the center a long purple flexible body headed off with a large spike. The latter is tiered, like a brown armored giant cake, ending with an organic cannon barrel at the top to shoot targets out of the sky. They are static defenses, unable to attack while moving, but should serve to keep her safe. While Nanoha is here, they won't be able to find her family. They will be frightened that she disappeared, but she has no real choice here.

Still, she can't expand without risking discovery by people. Speaking of which, she should tell Honda she won't be at her house. She turns her phone on, and looks at the connection. Only one bar, she might not be able to get his reply. Oh well, that just means he can't order her around.

Nanoha: Some evil organization found me and I had to hide. Bad connection, won't hear your reply.

She clicks send and turns her phone off to save battery. That'll do it. Back to her thoughts from before, she needs room to expand… and there are several uninhabited planets nearby.

"Raising Heart. Teach me Dimensional Transfer."

She is woken up the next day by an energy pulse. A Jewel Seed just executed. She gathers sixteen Zerglings around her and Transfers, teleporting into the city, with her Barrier Jacket still on from the day before. The people around her yell in surprise before disappearing as someone sets up a barrier. She looks up at the now colorless sky, seeing Fate by a Jewel Seed.

"Fate!" She flies up to her friend and smiles.

"What do you want?" She seems to just now see the Zerglings below. "What are those!"

"Oh, those are Zerglings. They're friendly, don't worry."

"Get away from Fate!" Arf shoots orange bolts at Nanoha, making her fall hit into one of the skyscrapers. She quickly flies back out.

"Wait! Arf, I'm not here's to fight, just talk! The TSAB are here and I'd like to invite you to my hi-ome since they are fighting me."

"We're safer than your house could be."

Nanoha opens her mouth to argue when a green flash of might interrupts her. It's Chrono-and he has back up on the ground. Half a dozen men wearing black cloaks, metal plated around their chests, and holding black staves that end with two forked yellow tips with a blue orb between them.

"You're all under arrest for attempting to steal Lost Logia. Disarm yourselves and you will be given a chance to defend yourself in court."

"Hey, we found them first! You should be the one to stop." Nanoha argues.

"These Lost Logia create dimensional tremors. The safety of this and its surrounding dimensions are our responsibility."

Fate tries to seal the Jewel Seed. Immediately, Chrono shoots her with several bolts. Fate falls only to be caught by Arf. Nanoha orders her Zerglings to attack the Bureau forces while she charges Chrono. She makes several Divine Shooters, and they hit Chrono just before she does. He blocks her staff with his own and flips below her, shooting her feet. She spins away out of control for a moment beforehand stabilizing herself.

"Fire!" The TSAB men get in a circle inside a circle formation and fire blue beams at her Zerglings, quickly tearing several of them apart. They jump from above and all sides, tearing at the shields and Barrier Jackets. Whenever one mage gets injured he is moved to the inside circle, keeping any of them from too bad injuries.

Fate slams Chrono, scythe against staff. Nanoha takes the opportunity to seal the Jewel Seed but Arf tries to shoot her down, forcing her to dive to the side. She shoots Arf with several Divine Shooters, then quickly switches into sealing mode and takes the Jewel Seed.

Nanoha then switches into shooting mode. "Divine Buster!" She hits both Chrono and Fate, though the former manages to get a shield up first. Chrono shoots back, which Nanoha dodges. Suddenly, she gets a warning from her base. Pain. She looks through her Overlords at base and sees another squad of TSAB men shooting at her spine crawlers, just out of reach. She looks down to see her Zerglings here all dead, having only injured a few men, and the rest starting to shoot beams at her.

She quickly flies away only to be stopped by the edge of the barrier.

"I can't go through this?"

"No, we will need to break out." Fate nods her head at Nanoha. Finally, she agreed to work together! Nanoha is just glad that she did.

"Right. Divine Buster." Nanoha switches to shooting mode and aims at the barrier. Chrono shoots at her only to be blocked by Fate's shield. Fate shoots several Photon Lancers back at him which he dodges and blocks with practiced ease.

Nanoha finishes her Divine Buster, breaking the barrier. The world returns to color and they can hear the surprised shock of people below.

"Fate, let's go!" Nanoha yells only to be met with a shake of a head.

"I can't. I'm sorry, but I have to get the Jewel Seeds. Photon Lancer." Fate shoots Nanoha several times, who just barely blocks the attack with shock.

Nanoha frowns. Her new friend isn't going to escape that easily. "Flash Move." Nanoha flies over to Fate, staff held forward. Fate holds up her staff to block Nanoha's only for Nanoha to transform her foot into sharp bone covered in spores and stab her in the leg with her foot. Arf shoots Nanoha off Fate only for Chrono to shoot Fate. Both girls fall to the ground surrounded by spectators, a drop of blood on Fate's leg sliding to the ground.

"Stop fighting! There are civilians here that could get hurt." Chrono plants his staff on the ground, and shifts to an unaggressive stance.

Nanoha frowns. What could he be doing? He hasn't left yet so he obviously still wants to fight them, but says he doesn't want to. She looks past him to where they were fighting. The Bureau mages are holding their staves up, casting some sort of spell.

"You're just delaying!" Nanoha quickly uses Transfer, teleporting away without being stopped due to being near a crowd. Fate and Arf do the same a moment later.

Meanwhile, the second squadron of mages had been slowly destroying her base. She had her remaining Zerglings circle them and attack from behind, but they just turned around and shot them, teleporting their few injured members out.

By the time Nanoha teleports in they have destroyed half her defenses, and she readies a Divine Buster. They quickly scatter, so she only hits one. She readies a dozen Divine Shooters instead. A few mages pick the injured one up and they all proceed to teleport out, no doubt not wanting to fight a stronger mage on her home ground.

The girl sighs, and drops onto the ground. She closes her eyes and begins ordering her base to rebuild. Larva from the Hatchery form eggs and morph into Drones. The Drones scurry about to find spots to morph into Crawlers. Other Drones carry in biomass from the forest in the form of wild animals and plants.

Nanoha bites her lips. This is extremely noticeable, people are likely to find her if she keeps this up. This will be a safe place for not much longer.

She needs to move. She orders several Drones and Zerglings including Zrok to move around her.

"Dimensional Transfer." A spell circle appears under their feet and they disappear onto another planet. The hive is replaced by green grass and healthy air. This is a nearby dimension she had scouted earlier, easy to get to and back.

Nanoha orders the Drones to collect some biomass and morph into a hatchery. It picks a spot on the field to morph and eats the biomass provided by the other Drones. It turns into a giant pink egg attached to the ground, spikes coming off it's side to deter any local animals.

While it's morphing, Nanoha browses the internet with Raising Heart. It seems with all her public appearances lately people are starting to suspect something is going on, though most people seem to think it's fake. There is a small group in America petitioning their government to make magical girls, but they don't seem to know what they are talking about. Several people are claiming that they're aliens, but got the details wrong. She isn't from Mars, and she's doesn't think the TSAB has a base there either. Someone is also claiming she's their missing child… nope, not her mom.

Nanoha frowns. She should probably tell her parents what she's doing.

"Can I call my mom from here with my phone?" Nanoha asks her staff.

"No, my master. Your phone won't have signals," Raising Heart replies.

"So I have to teleport back to call her."

"No, I can mimic your phone."

"Do that, I want to call my mom."

"Yes, my master."

"Hey, Mom?"

"Is that you Nanoha?" Momoko answers.

"Yeah. Um, so recently-" Yuuno did say she can't reveal magic. Or is that counteracted by everyone flying in plain sight? Better be safe. Time to explain everything without mentioning magic.

"So an archeologist who lost dangerous artifacts like in Indiana Jones needed my help to recover them but a girl wanted them too so I fought her then the not-space police came but were evil so we had to fight them and now I'm at my hive preparing to fight them. Can I skip school for a few days?"

"Um." Momoko stays silent for a moment. "When will you be back? Is the agency okay with this?"

"Oh, in a week or two? And I told them about it." Nanoha considers it for a moment. That sounds about right, at this rate the Jewel Seeds will all be collected by the end of the week. Then she just has to make Fate accept her friendship, get the TSAB to leave, and get the agency to accept that she's a mage now.

"Alright, I'll call you in. Good luck on your adventure! Don't get hurt while flying!"

"Thanks mom, bye!" Nanoha hangs up. The Hatchery has finished morphing and creep begins to spread across the field, killing the grass. Nanoha has the other Drones start morphing defenses and a Spawning Pool then teleports back to her main hive.

A few hours later Nanoha, bored, looks at the news. Some political scandal, more rerun soon of her last fight, a pop idol made some sort of announcement, a fight between a giant robot and Chrono, the Emperor's cat got stuck in a tree-wait. Chrono is fighting a giant robot? Must be an a Jewel Seed.

Nanoha gathers several Zerglings and teleports to the fight. She has her Zerglings go after the Bureau mages–it looks to be a mix of the two groups earlier–and flies after Chrono herself. He has currently almost demolished the robot which seems to be a mishmash of parts made from a car factory, which isn't just behind it. She can see the actual Jewel Seed is in the factory, possessing the machines which hold the ruined roof up. Several workers are still inside, and would surely be crushed if someone made a barrier, taking the machinery with it.

She pauses in the air for a moment. She should try talking first, she learned that from her parents.

"Chrono! Stop trying to take over this world and kidnap me, you don't have jurisisti-jurisdiction!" Nanoha smiles, hopeful they will give up. Chrono seems to just look at her in confusion.

"You kidnapped a Bureau citizen." He shoots Nanoha several times.

"It's for his own good! And mine. But he's still my friend!" She shields herself and shoots a dozen Divine Shooters back.

"If he is your friend then turn yourself in! With his testimony you could avoid charges." He blocks them and points his staff at Nanoha, charging it for an attack.

"I'll never fall for your tricks! I know how this goes, Divine Buster!" Nanoha shoots him before he finishes, but he dodges. Instead the robot is destroyed, cars flying everywhere.

He shoots Nanoha in turn which she attempts to dodge, but one hits. She creates Divine Shooters and charges at him but he evades them and their staves clash. They push against each other, both determined to win. Then he shifts his grip, making hers slide and she loses her balance. He fires at point blank range and she is thrown away.

Nanoha takes stock of the situation. She's injured, her Zerglings are almost all dead, and Chrono is winning.

"I'll stop your evil deeds next time! Transfer." Nanoha teleports out. Once at her hive, she wonders why Fate didn't show up. Her infestation won't complete for a while yet, so she should be acting as normal. This is the first Jewel Seed since she arrived that she didn't show up. Perhaps she was getting a different one? If she did then she probably got it fine. Fate's strong after all.

Nanoha walks around her hatchery, biting her lip. She had thought it was a good idea to keep Yuuno trapped before, but now she feels guilty. He's already been stuck in there for a while, and she doesn't know for sure when she will be able to let him out. She could just let him out now, but he'd surely go to the TSAB.

There really is only one solution here. She'll have to infest Yuuno with the partial infestation she developed for Fate. All her instincts are telling her to infest him anyways. She communicates with the hatchery and has it inject the spores into his blood. With the hatchery monitoring the process, it shouldn't take too long.

That doesn't mean she can be complacent though. She teleports to her other-world hive cluster and orders that hatchery to evolve to a lair. Lairs are much larger, and give her access to more essence which means she can make better Zerg to use.

She has several of the larva morph into Drones and Zerglings and pairs them off. The Zerglings hunt the local wildlife while the drones pick up the biomass and bring it back to the hive. A few hours later she has one Drone morph into a Roach Warren.

When that is done, she orders several Roaches to be made. It is a black and purple armored quadrupeds with two additional claws on its top, spikes littering its back. Its head is surrounded by the black armor and can spit green acid which instantly eats away anything it touches.

She orders her new Zerglings and Roaches into battle groups, ready to fight at any moment. She has one of them, a group of ten Zerglings and three roaches, come with her as she teleports back to her original hive to get Yuuno.

It is chaos. The TSAB mages are all attacking the hive cluster, beams of energy going everywhere. All the Zerg she had here are dead, mindlessly driven to attack uselessly by the Overlords. If she had made a queen to strategize and actually control the hive… but no matter.

She has the Roaches she brought with her head to the outer layer of her remaining defenses and spit acid at the mages. Meanwhile, the Zerglings sneak off into the forest to preform a flanking maneuver. The Roaches' acid hits the mages' shields and flies off, eating into the ground and nearby trees.

"Surrender! You are currently under arrest for attacking and attempted murder of an officer of the law! No one has gotten hurt, so if you surrender now you may get reduced charges."

"You're not going to get me dissected in a lab!" Nanoha flies to the hatchery and goes inside. She can feel her roaches being torn apart and her Zerglings being spotted, barely reaching the mages before being destroyed.

She has the cocoon with Yuuno open, the partial infestation process complete. He looks the same as before, except she knows if someone were to look at his back they'd find a part one millimeter thicker: the symbiote. She's reflects that if she was a true geneticist she might be able to avoid that, but it's an acceptable trade off anyway.

"Er, uh. What's happening? Why do I hear so many voices? What is this!"

"Shhh Yuuno I'll explain later, come with me now."

His eyes open wide as he realizes what happened. "I said _not_ to infect me with your virus! Turn me back!"

"Technically it was spores carrying a virus and that's impossible. Let's go!"

They've already destroyed enough defenses to reach the hatchery unopposed. If they come in, Yuuno will know it's them.

"That fighting outside… it's the TSAB, right?"

Or he'll guess anyways. Nanoha frowns. He is being difficult, and she isn't skilled enough in Dimensional Transfer to teleport someone else against their will.

"Blaze Cannon!" Chrono stands next to the hatchery and shoots a large blue beam at it, incinerating the walls.

"Wide Area Protection!" Nanoha creates a large shield protecting her and Yuuno from the blast. She has only one choice left to her now. She reaches into Yuuno's Psi connection and yells into it. He doesn't have Zerg biology so she's can't directly control him, but there is a next best thing. She sends a signal that is nothing but a very loud scream, causing him to blink, having lost his train of thought. She grabs him and pulls him to the middle of her remaining defenses, not even near the hatchery anymore while telepathically calling to him.

 _"_ _Yuuno teleport to these coordinates!"_

 _"_ _No!"_

She had hoped that would work. She does have one option left though.

 _"_ _See how they're destroying the hive? They hate me and us! If you go to them they'll just kill you."_

 _"_ _Or they will remove my connection to the hive that you put in my neck."_

 _"_ _Exactly! Which would kill you."_

 _"_ _I think I'm going to take my chances."_

Nanoha starts to panic. He isn't listening to her! The Bureau is getting closer!

"I am your Queen! You will obey!" She falls upon Zerg instincts. She floods his connection with her thoughts and he cries out. She sends nerve signals through the connection to directly control his body while activating Dimensional Transfer. Unable to resist, he disappear from that world with her teleportation, and they appear in her new, and now only, hive cluster.

She lets go, and Yuuno collapses like a puppet with its strings cut. Nanoha just stands, relieved that they got away and are no longer in danger. Yuuno gets to his knees and slowly rises.

"What did you just do?"

"I used the link and forced you to come with me. You don't understand–you needed to!"

"I don't think so. Look, Nanoha, this has gotten out of hand. You kept me trapped in that thing for who knows how long–"

"Only a few days."

"And then when I get out I discover you mind hacked me!"

"Spine, actually. I figured you would want to keep your mind. And you do! I had to put a lot of effort into making you obey, you know."

"That's not much better."

Nanoha lets out a breath. He clearly doesn't understand what a gift she gave him and how bad governments are. She'll have to get him on her side another way.

"How about I make it up to you? I can improve your body a bunch. I can make it so you don't need to eat or sleep and I could make your skin tougher or I could amplify your magic a little or–"

"I think you're missing the point."

Yuuno's wrong, she isn't missing the point. He is, he just won't understand how much better Zerg are than human biology. This isn't probably why, she reflects, all the previous viruses to infest humans targeted the brain and used psychological warfare to make them submit. She will have to come up with a better plan.

"We can't afford to fight each other either way. The Jewel Seeds are still out there and need to be sealed. How about I make you a bed in the Lair and we can keep discussing this later. As long as you promise not to teleport out."

"Alright. But I'm not sleeping in the Lair, and you have to promise not to go into my mind."

"Right." He doesn't have to know how difficult it is to control him.

—

 _The same time, one dimension and 10,850 km away_

Nine people enter a moderately lit room and sit down at a circular but large white table, comfortable seats for each of them. It is a rather plain room, solid beige sound-proofed walls on all sides and no decorations of any sort anywhere. Even the lights are a simple eight circles in the ceiling above the table.

"Let's start right away. May the Japanese representative please begin," the American states plainly, a broad muscular man with short brown hair and dark skin.

"Of course," Kimura, a short, skinny, green haired man says, "we have called for an emergency meeting between the signees of the Paranormal Accords of 1992 due to a critical discover: access to other dimensions."

"And you have proof of this?" The German representative, a blond haired woman asks.

"Indeed. You are, of course, aware of the subject of Paranormal Activity 0285, correct?" Nods greet him from all around the table. "The bugs placed on her reveal a meeting between her and what seems to be an alien."

"More of the 0285 creatures?" The French representative, a short black haired man clarifies.

"No. Our observations make him appear to be a human who turns into a ferret, and he appears to have given her 'magical powers', direct quote, by giving her alien technology to fight alien technology that went out of control." The room grows silent as he finishes.

"Is this a joke?" The Brazilian representative, a short muscular man with dark hair asks. Kimura was afraid this would be the reaction. Luckily, he came prepared.

"I'm afraid not. We do have, of course, the recordings." He pulls out a small device from his pocket and presses a button, playing the recording of Yuuno meeting Nanoha for the first time. For a time it plays just static, right after she repeats several of Yuuno's words back to him, before eventually returning to sound after the presumed battle is over.

"Why is a part just static? A fault with your machines?" The British representative asks.

"No, it appears when the subject uses her magic her clothes change until she is finished. Since the recorder wasn't destroyed, we suspect it was placed in an extradimensional pocket like most of their tech seems to be based on. We have since corrected this problem by placing the recorders elsewhere and now can hear her even when she uses magic."

"Have you managed to get copies of the device she is using?" The American asks.

"No. I'm afraid her contact was unable to make her come in after the initial report. She has since stopped talking with her contact, and the recorders cannot send us information while she is in another dimension."

"Humph, you should get better control over your people," the Indian representative suggests. Kimura internally scoffs, but makes no outward reaction. The girl believes she's Japanese, that'll be enough to make her fall in line. They haven't cultivated a positive relationship with her for years for nothing. In any case, he isn't going to be too forceful at her, as that will only drive her away.

"She will report back in line. In any case, we have managed to hear the equations, which is the basis of the technology they call 'magic', for their 'Interdimensional Transfer spell'. We already have scientists trying to find principles that should allow us to make use of it."

"You should share these equations with all of us," the Indian suggests. "We could do more research than you alone."

"We shouldn't spread it too far. We don't want others getting their hands on it first and using it against us," the American says, giving Kimura a glance. He will want the information no matter how this meeting goes. Kimura sends a glance back but internally frowns. The Americans think they have far too much power over the rest of them.

"I suggest we take this information told and reconvene tomorrow. This is a rather important decision," the Canadian representative suggests.

"I second that motion," the Italian representative says. The other representatives quickly agree.

One by one, they leave the room, shutting it closed behind them.

AN: In this, I'm afraid I've broken a rule of modern fantasy. Magical attacks happen in full view of everyone and nonmagical people are going to actually respond to it and in a way that isn't stupidlyantagonistic.


	5. Chapter Three and hiatus notice

AN: So I started a rewrite of chapter three but didn't finish it, so I'll just give it here and unthreadmark the previous chapter three if I do continue this. I have about 1/3 the chapter and will post the rest of my planned storyline at the end, though it's less comprehensive than the original. If you think I will finish this and don't want a spoiler then don't read that part.

Nanoha rushes into Uminari Seaside Park with Yuuno. They sensed a Jewel Seed had executed, so hurried there as soon as they could with Raising Heart now fully repaired. Yuuno quickly puts down a barrier, and Nanoha prepares for battle.

A giant tree was the result, monstrous though immobile. Fate shoots dozens of Photon Lancers at it, all blocked by a magic shield.

"Flyer Fin!" Nanoha flies high into the air, followed by Yuuno shortly after.

"Arc Saber." Bardiche turns into a scythe once more and Fate flings it's blade far away from her, cutting through the tree's roots.

"Divine Buster!" Nanoha shoots the tree with a pink beam coming from the forks of her staff. The tree blocks it with a barrier, roaring in anger.

"Thunder Smasher." A small spell circle appears in front of her and she slams her axe into it, prompting a beam of yellow magic to come bursting at the tree. The two beams hit it at once, overwhelming the tree. It disappears, the Jewel Seedbed rising above.

"Jewel Seed Serial VII, seal!" Nanoha and Fate yell at the same time. Their energies clash, causing nothing more than an explosion. Nanoha uses that time to dash to Fate, throwing more spores onto her.

"Sonic Move!" Fate dashes away to Nanoha's original position, almost dodging the spores. But not quite, so Nanoha smirks. They both dash at the Jewel Seed.

"What did you just do?" Fate asks, scowling.

"Nothing! But I think we should avoid jolting the Jewel Seeds. If something like before happened again…"

"Right, but I can't give it up."

"Device Form."  
"Device Mode." Both devices exit their sealing mode.

"I just want to talk. I am not a simple naive human child. If I beat you, will you listen to my story?"

Nanoha stares into Fate's eyes. Fate nods in understanding. The two girls race toward each other, readying their stages to battle.

"Stop!" In a flash of light a boy appears. He wears a black, uniform with spikes sticking out the sides. She appreciates the spikes aesthetic. He has his own staff, blocking both girl's attacks at once. "Combat here is too dangerous. I'm an Enforcer from the Time-Space Administration Bureau, Chrono Harlaown. Would you tell me the details of this case?"

Everyone freezes. Nanoha frowns at this unexpected arrival. He's interfering with her chance to befriend Fate. Time-Space Administration Bureau… she thinks Yuuno mentioned them at some point. They're government, just like what she's been dealing with her whole life.

"Everyone calm down. If you were to continue fighting…" The three of them slowly float to the ground. Nanoha notices Arf is trying to break free of Yuuno's bindings in a desperate attempt to attack.

"Fate, we need to retreat! Get away from them!" Arf struggles in Yuuno's binds, tearing them off her.

"I'm the archaeologist who first found these Lost Logia. Um, a little help?" Yuuno explains to the enforcer. Before Chrono can respond, Fate shoots Yuuno. He stands unharmed, but loses his grip on the bindings holding Arf. Arf runs over to Fate and casts Transfer, the two of them teleporting away.

"She got away…" Nanoha frowns. That Chrono is ruining everything. She flies up to the Jewel Seed and seals it, then floats back to the ground where Yuuno and Chrono are talking. A yellow spell circle with a green haired woman's face on it appears in the air next to them.

"Chrono, well done. I'd like to hear the rest of the story, so can you guide them aboard then Arthra?" the woman asks. Chrono nods, and the three of them teleport aboard the ship.

Nanoha looks around in awe. "Yuuno… is this a real spaceship?"

"It's a dimensional transport owned by the Time-Space Administration Bureau. It's a ship that can freely move between the many dimensions on this world. It doesn't travel through space, really, though it can stay in orbit."

"Why not?"

"Where would you even go in space? Space is too big to actually reach anywhere in a reasonable amount of time."

That's not right, Nanoha knows. The biggest creature she can build should be able to travel between solar systems. She decides to remain silent.

As they pass through a door Chrono turns around. "You must be uncomfortable wearing that outfit for such a long time. You can release your Barrier Jacket and device."

Nanoha looks at him suspiciously. This could be a trap, it's not like he's leaving his Barrier Jacket, and her own isn't that uncomfortable. She looks over at Yuuno and sees him wearing a green vest, already having released his Barrier Jacket, and mentally sighs before doing the same. She'll trust him on this, and it's better not to be too antagonistic.

They continue walking, and eventually go through one last door. "Captain, I've brought them here."

Nanoha's first impression of the room is comfort. Potted plants along the walls, a tea set boiling tea, and on the other side of the room is the woman from earlier.

"You must be tired. I'm captain Lindy Harlaown. Come here, relax," she says. Nanoha shrugs, and walks over. The four of them have green tea and treats while they talk, explaining what has happened so far with the Jewel Seeds but omitting the Zerg.

"So that's all then?" Lindy asks.

"… no," Yuuno begins. "It's not directly related to the Jewel Seeds, but Nanoha blub-" Nanoha covers his mouth with her hand.

"Nothing! That's all. That's the whole case."

"What was he going to say?" Chrono asks, eyebrows narrowing.

"I said, nothing."

Yuuno pulls her hand off his face. "You don't have to worry about telling them. They're the good guys."

"Well, the last people who I told it to kept doing experiments on me and telling me what to do. Every week, then every other week, I had to go to a lab and they'd tear the poor things apart and give me shots and take my blood and stupid Honda kept interfering with my life and they made me spend all that time making sure no one stupid would accidentally kill themselves on it even if it's their own fault and I was already saving people and he didn't let me help my friends by making them better and they're all stupid." Nanoha finishes her rant with red puffy cheeks and a scowl on her face. Chrono and Lindy share a glance.

Lindy puts a sugar cube in her green tea. Nanoha doesn't even notice. "I think you need to start from the beginning, what this is all about."

So Nanoha explains herself and the Zerg with the story she always has, making sure to not mention that the Zerg could kill everyone in her country. By the end she has calmed down a little.

"Interesting, but not especially relevant to the case. So what made you think this was so important?" Chrono asks Yuuno.

"I think the Zerg may be Lost Logia. They seem to be a biological weapon of some sort."

"Weapon? They're cute!" Nanoha insists.

"They have spikes all over them, sharp teeth, and giant claws!"

"Yeah, so cute." Nanoha looks at Yuuno confusedly. He's being a bit obtuse here.

"How dangerous are these Zerg?" Chrono asks. _Based on their conversation, we may need to intervene. If they're truly just biological we might be able to just destroy them, but… we need to make sure._

Nanoha frowns at his thoughts. "Not dangerous at all. I can control them."

"Are they not dangerous _because_ you can control them, or because they are truly not harmful?"

"Yes," Nanoha insists. Chrono frowns.

"Why don't you go home and we can talk about this tomorrow. You will surely be glad that you don't have to worry about the Jewel Seeds anymore," Lindy cuts in.

"Wait, why don't we have to worry about the Jewel Seeds? They're still activating!" Nanoha opens her eyes wide. They surely wouldn't take her own job.

"We'll be handling the case now. I can see you're conflicted–we can discuss this tomorrow." Lindy says.

"Captain, look at this," Chrono says. He has a magical screen up in front of him, looking at a forest. Nanoha peers at it curiously when it zooms in on her hive cluster. She pales. "I'm sending this to Communication Operator Amy to check if we have any records of these creatures."

"See? They're cute, right?" Nanoha asks them.

Chrono frowns slightly, looking at the screen. "It's destroyed the plants near the organic buildings. Whether we have records of it or not, it can't be safe."

"You can't destroy it!" Nanoha blurts.

"Why not?"

"I need it. I'm Zerg too, remember? Yuuno, you wouldn't let them kill me, right?"

"What? No one is going to kill you Nanoha."

Spoilers:

(Don't read if you don't want spoilers. Do read if you want to know how the first half of the story would end.)

Prologue:  
✔️Nanoha is a Zerg changeling. Goes to the forest to recharge-otherwise would expire-and is caught by family for the first time. She is 5 years old. When she was really little, Zerglings would bring sustenance because she has a stronger psionic control than them.

✔️She shows them the small hive cluster that has no real driving force/intelligence behind it AKA is feral. Some Zerglings randomly attack them and they fight back.

✔️Conversation with family, Nanoha swears to be friends with humans for real and to be like a real child.

✔️A government bureaucrat comes and makes a deal with Nanoha. This is how the hive ends up avoiding notice.

Chapter 1:  
✔️Jewel Seeds come, Yuuno gets Nanoha like normal. Nanoha uses Zerg biomass to try to heal him. He tells her about the shadow creature and reluctantly asks for her help, she goes outside and fights the shadow creature.

✔️Honda the government guy comes to her house, reveal their dislike of each other.

✔️Next day she fights another Jewel Seed

✔️Yuuno interlude: He discovers her going back to the hive as using her abilities makes her die quicker. Cliffhanger on how she will respond to his intrusion.

Chapter 2:  
✔️She threatens him, he says it isn't his business. He is very worried, plans to tell the TSAB. He convinces her to let him still stop the Jewel Seeds and not be stuck in the hive/killed.

✔️They get several Jewel Seeds off screen. This leads to the government seeing Nanoha has magic and ask why she's didn't tell them; she tells them a little but doesn't include magic. Honda decides it's above his paygrade and puts in a request to deal with the new developments because Nanoha claims they are unrelated to the Zerg.

✔️Fate comes and they fight as normal. Fate accidentally chops Nanoha's arm off, she is annoyed but still tries to befriend Fate. Fate is extremely confused and distraught.

✔️Few more incidents. Nanoha plants Zerg spores on Fate while they clash.

✔️Fate/Arf Interlude: Fate goes back to tell her mother, includes mention of the girl who acts crazy. Her mother thinks she is lying as an excuse, then scans her and sees the spores. She has Fate cleaned then sent back with orders to kill Nanoha.

Chapter 3:  
✔️Fate and Nanoha fight then Chronology shows up to break up the fight, Fate flees. Nanoha goes with him to the Arthra with Yuuno after Yuuno insists, saying she'll trust him.

✔️They discuss the Jewel Seeds and the Zerg, which results in Nanoha insisting she has control of them but Chrono wanting to destroy or seal them. She reveals she needs them alive.

They still make her go down and they teleport all of the hive into a storage room on the ship. She protests the whole time, thinking she is going to be stuck with them and not be on Earth anymore due to them having the creep. She does tell them this. She also texts Honda explaining somethings while on Earth. She has a Drone bury itself there, keeping it on Earth.

She accidentally teleports to the wrong world while teleporting, wrong coordinates, though Raising Heart keeps her safe. It is the Koprulu dimension and the world there is completely infested. The local Brood Queen tries to take her over and starts questioning her, but the Bureau mages manage to get her out of that dimension in time. The Queen realizes she is a changeling and tells her that–to Nanoha's insistence that she is part human–orders her to subvert the Terran mages is the Swarm can eventually infest them.

They realize that's where her Zerg came from and tighten security on the holding cell of the Zerg. Nanoha insists she has them completely under control but Chrono doubts her.

A Jewel Seed executes, Nanoha Yuuno and Chrono go down to Earth to seal it and Fate doesn't show up, seeing them all there.

Nanoha makes Overlords and Roaches on the ship, claiming they need them for defense due to lack of real forces. She claims she can defend herself against the queen now. Scene where she talks to her mom. Lindy ends up accepting the larger forces but puts a limit on them, feeling pity? for Nanoha.

A Jewel Seed activates, Nanoha sees it as a way to show her Zerg can be useful. She goes to seal the Jewel Seed without Chrono/Yuuno and does so, but also fights Fate. She manages to get Fate with the spores this time.

✔️Secret international meeting in New York. Japan shares info about magic and interdimensional travel (the equations for the spell but not all of how to use magic), other member nations there are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, India, Brazil, and the United States.

Chapter 4:  
Fate uses her powers over the ocean to activate six seeds; Nanoha comes and helps poor energy out. Then the Jewel Seeds activate and make a water golem army which Nanoha has to defend the shoreline from with her Zerg.

The TSAB comes when they are exhausted and they flee. Nanoha brings in two roaches and eight Zerglings/something like that. Nanoha and Fate fight the TSAB; a few are seriously injured. Nanoha is killed in this fight.

Fate/Art interlude: Fate and Arf are shell shocked. Fate's infestation finally completes and Yuuno tells her the coordinates of the hive. Fate brings Raising Heart there, Arf says they should destroy the hive but Fate can't bring herself to agree. They see a chrysalis and learn from Yuuno that it is Nanoha being reborn. Fate is glad she is alive. Nanoha hatches.

Fate explains her reasons and Nanoha agrees to come with to Precia, but not necessarily give the Jewel Seeds.

Nanoha creates and uses an Evolution Chamber. She upgrades her units. She makes more overlords and an army. She enters Precia's ship with 10 roaches and 40 Zerglings and with Fate, Arf, and Yuuno.

Precia refuses to negotiate, revealing Alicia and saying Fate is a failure that she never loved. Nanoha attacks. Robots fight Zerg, she goes for Precia directly. Fate stays back and Arf just protects her as the fight goes on at first then Fate goes for Precia to try to save her. Eventually Nanoha wins, but she does have to teleport in reinforcements first (with Yuuno's help, maybe Arf's help?) and captures Precia. They leave the ship which is beginning to collapse, but the Lost Logia engine didn't get turned on so not as bad as canon.

Chapter 5:  
They return to the hive cluster, but the TSAB was tracking them. They ask for her to return Precia to them. Fate asks her not to, so she refuses and says they don't have authority (they do). Yuuno comes out and negotiates, they come to an agreement.

The hive cluster is left alone, Precia goes to jail, Fate is given a plea deal but is allowed to visit her mother who still hates her (and is still dying), Yuuno goes back home. Also Precia gets infested so Fate can always talk to her? Arf vetoes that suggestion. Nanoha has to finish school? (it is June?, term ends July 20th for approx 2 months)


End file.
